


Realizations

by Elucreh



Category: Mairelon the Magician - Patricia Wrede
Genre: F/M, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elucreh/pseuds/Elucreh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard Merrill has never been a man much given to introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Realizations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shina Laris

 

 

Richard Merrill isn't a man given to much introspection. There are better things to think about than himself, and worry about his health and prospects are safer in someone else's hands. Growing up, he had Andrew, and now there's Hunch.

Hunch is better; in the end, he has to do what Richard says. There are annoyances to being the younger brother, despite all the benefits of not being the heir, and if Richard had been forced to spend his time in France out-stubborning Andrew, he would never have gotten anything done. He might not have been shot, either, but being shot is nothing to fuss about. Hunch's opinions to the contrary.

Clearly, Hunch's opinions don't count for much, with all the fuss he made over Kim, like he couldn't feel the quiet click of something important, something meant-to-be, locking in place when Kim popped the lid of the trunk in his wagon and looked over her shoulder with a grin.

Astonishing, really, how long it took the rest of the pieces to slide into place.

But then, Richard isn't given to introspection.

*~*~*

"Richard!" Andrew exclaims, his tone familiar, panicked. "Are you mad? You can't possibly live with this--girl--in the middle of London!"

It's an odd thought for Richard, anybody objecting to Kim being with him. Besides Hunch, but he scarcely counts. It takes him a moment to register _girl_ and put it together with _impropriety_ and realize what it is Andrew thinks might happen, or be happening. It shakes his equilibrium for a moment, to think of _Kim_ and _wrong_ together, but he finds an answer to the problem quickly enough; he doesn't have to think about it any further.

*~*~*~*

The Correy button incident throws Richard badly.

It was bad enough, the whole Society question. Kim's always done as he asked her to, when he's the expert on the subject, just as he took her word on Laverham at face value. He's trusted the rhythm of this partnership, trusted knowing when to take the lead and when to let her do it. It upsets him to realize that they're off-beat, that he's forgotten to allow for her knowledge of herself and what she's learned in the past year; it upsets him to realize he _has_ to allow for it, that it didn't just come to him, as knee-jerk reactive as smiling at her.

But it's worse to be shut out of a mission, even if she has a point, and worst to hear her say she doesn't want him involved at all. She doesn't trust him, and he can't even really blame her. He doesn't _let_ himself think about why it's so horrible to realize it.

But he promises, and she believes him, and maybe they're on their way to mending fences. That's more important than anything else.

*~*~*

Certainly she looks nice when they go to the opera, the very portrait of a perfect young lady, becomingly nervous and lovely in her blush.

But it couldn't be more obvious that she doesn't feel like Kim, and since she isn't Kim, he doesn't bother considering her appearance for very long.

Perhaps it should have made him aware of something, that, in a backwards sort of way, but he doesn't think of it like that till long afterward.

*~*~*~*

When Aunt Agatha talks of the Marquis of Harsfeld, Kim blushes. _Kim_. Not Miss Merrill, the construct of oils and canvas and illusion that his mother has been so carefully maintaining with a ribbon here and a word of advice there. Miss Merrill vanished as soon as he wobbled in Lady Greythorne's ballroom, Kim bubbling to the surface like gold from the dross and striding out of the house like she had every intention of picking pockets to pay their cab fare. She was grim and drawn with worry by the time the coach pulled up to the house, but even so he prefers Kim to Miss Merrill, and he's glad she's come back right up until Aunt Agatha starts hinting things.

Kim, his Kim, blushes, red roses rising to her pale skin, and suddenly he wishes for Miss Merrill back, because there might be some reason for Miss Merrill to blush that doesn't feel like a flat-handed blow to his face.

Coming on top of losing his magic, it's a bit much. He doesn't consider what it might mean.

The next morning isn't any better, with Kim risking life and limb without so much as telling him of it, because she doesn't trust him. The anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach yawns wide and painful when she says she wanted to keep him from breaking his promise; he has to swallow hard before he can make a joke of it

The hurt eases a little when he realities how worried she was, how mistaken she feels. He's still a little hoarse with emotion when he eases them back to familiar ground, though. He watches her shoulders settle with the correction of her grammar, and realities that his own breathing has evened out, too. He's known, of course, that it reassures her to hear him try to keep her in his world, but it's startling to realize how much he needs to know she still wants to be there.

He makes her promise they're in this kind of thing together, and is grateful to let it rest there, a puzzle to get on with.

Their partnership has never felt so fragile before, though, and he's careful to ask before he assumes.

*~*~*~*

As the illusion fades in the candlelight, Kim looks over at him and grins in exultation, the same smile that clicked her into his life over a year ago, and Kim blurs with Miss Merrill, her joy shining out over Miss Merrill's elaborate dress. Kim _becomes_ the beautiful, elegant creature he's been observing with bemusement these past few months, the eligible _woman_ the hordes of young idiots have been seeing for weeks, and he's dazed by it, dazzled.

He doesn't ask her to dance again, he doesn't dare, but he watches her smile and flirt and shy away from being touched. He can tell he's trying desperately to bury the rising idea of what this awareness means.

*~*~*~*

And then it's too late. Harsfeld has come to him, with his calm assurance of wealth and beauty and youth, his confidence in Kim, and Richard seems to have given his permission without any clear kind of idea what he was saying. He can't, after all, say that she belongs to him, that he's hers and he can't do without her; he can only bear to even think it with considerable help from the brandy decanter.

He's well to live already when Kim stops in the doorway, and for the first time he can't stop his eyes lingering on her full mouth, the small rise of her breasts, the lamplight on her dark curls. She doesn't even notice where his gaze rests.

She seems genuinely puzzled when he congratulates her, though, and there's a brief, shining half-minute of hope between the time she crushes the Marquis of Harsfeld's dreams and the time she crushes his.

She always surprises him. She's so much more aware of her body than most of the people he's known; he's aware that to a certain extent it's merely a product of her class, that it was never trained out of her with polite company and restrained by education. But part of it--the strength of it--must be the ancient fear of the stews. To him, the sexual side of marriage is the least of it; the thought that Harsfeld would be taking her away had been dominating his reaction. But now he can see her, lying under that young jackanapes, bought and paid for, and he has to take another swallow of brandy to control his reaction to the thought. He sets the glass down very, very carefully.

It makes him feel better to hear her talk of happy marriage. And she says there's no one she wants.

For a moment, he's tempted to take her hand.

But he hasn't a chance. Obviously, it's the brandy.

Thank god for Gideon Starnes and gin, or he might have chanced it.

*~*~*~*

Kissing her is a desperate gasp for air; being married to her is like breathing. It doesn't need a lot of thought, that easy rhythm.

Thank god.

He still isn't much for introspection.

 


End file.
